ADAPT Action Blog
The words of Activists at the ADAPT Action.
Galen Smith
ADAPT Twin Cities
My name is Galen Smith. I'm from Minneapolis, MN. Today was the first day of my first ADAPT action. I got to the hotel from where I am staying at a bout 8am this morning. I was so excited I woke up on time even though my alarm didn't go off!! (And I am NOT a morning person.) a bit after 8:30am we took off marching to a destination unknown (to me anyway). I helped push someone's wheelchair and all I knew was that I was supposed to open the door and usher other ADAPTers into the building when we got where we were going. It was a long walk/roll and we chanted the whole time.
Down with nursing homes! Up with attendant care!
Community Choice Act NOW!
All along the route the Chicago police blocked car and pedestrian traffic from crossing our single file march. The police were on foot, in cars, on ATVs and even on Segway scooters. (We'll know we've made some progress when the cops are using power chairs instead!) Before I knew it we were moving toward the doors of an office building.
We tried all the doors. They were locked. We blocked all of the doors with our chairs and our bodies and circled the glass enclosed lobby. The building we were at was the office of the American Medical Association (AMA). We have four specific demands for the AMA related to their endorsement and active promotion of the Community Choice Act and their divestment from the nursing home industry.
Nobody was getting in or out of that building unless we said they could. I was standing in front of one of the doors and got to know some of the folks around me. One of those people was Dawn from Milwaukee. She had her chair parked right in front of the door that was used by the negotiators and AMA spokespeople to get in and out (when our leadership agreed to let them in or out). Dawn said, "I love the place because here I'M in control. I was locked up in a joint and I couldn't get out. Now they can't get out unless I let them out!"
You can't get out!
Just like the nursing home!
Negotiators came out and went in. We sang. We chanted. We ate hamburgers and salads from McDonald's. The AMA lied to us, gave us the runaround, and clearly wasn't interested in meeting our demands.
Rather go to jail, than die in a nursing home!
The police had started to order the crowd to disperse at the door on the other side of the building so some of us moved there to try to hold that door. I moved in and sat down on the ground. The police started moving people away from the door by driving their chairs or picking them up off the ground. I moved in and sat in front of the door.
"Where did this guy come from?"
When the cops turned around I was sitting there. One of the officers grabbed my arm and asked me to get up. I sat and stared straight ahead. He got another cop to grab my other arm but they couldn't pick me up. It took two more police officers to pick up each of my limbs and haul me off away from the door. They sat me down and I became part of the line of people waiting to receive citations. Eventually a cop came up and asked for my I.D. I gave it to him and he wrote me my ticket. As he handed it to me he said, "I understand what you're doing and I'm with you. I'm just doing my job." I told him that I understood that - I was doing my job too. After I received my citation I got up and handed it off to the leader and joined the rest of the group for the march back. The police were very helpful for the march back and continued to block the traffic and help keep everyone safe.
We didn't get our demands met (yet). But the AMA got a small taste of what it was like to have their freedom and their fate controlled by someone else. And, a lot of Chicagoans got an education today!